[Torq]

  Didn't hear the 100 ohms version, but the 200 ohms version seem harder to drive. From my experience, the new version sounds "2d" when not amplified correctly. Actually, the holographic soundstage is one of the things I love so much about the LCD-4 (200 ohms).

 
The 200 ohm version requires about 2.3x more power than the original driver - based on the increased impedance and drop in sensitivity.
 
What constitutes "correct" amplification?
 
With the Ragnarok there's about 2.5 watts available at 200 ohms (25% more than, say, the Moon Neo 430, which comes up a lot in comments about LCD-4 and soundstage), the WA5LE I'm using has ~7 watts available for the LCD-4 on its high-power setting.
 
There's no way they're being under-powered here.
 
The source is known for it's imaging.
 
The presentation of the WA5LE is hugely holographic and has great depth when the music allows for it.
 
I don't think the lack of depth to the image in this case has anything to do with how the headphones are being fed.

 

[draytonklammer]

Yeah, as much as I want to buy into the power situation, I feel that it only matters to an extent.
 
The Moon Neo has me looking around with a majority of my music collection. I also feel as though I am hearing every aspect of the song in some way, similar to how it can be portrayed with the HD 800/S. I don't feel like it would be quite to that level of course, but I felt no better about the Abyss, HEK, etc.

 

[Barra]

 

  Listening to Torq's 4s vs. the Abyss, they are both no doubt in the exotic category - above TOTL, and my favorite HPs so far easily beating the 009/007 for my tastes and listening preferences. Between them, 4 still sits on top for me as more engaging. The Abyss had me giddy and quickly running through songs looking for fun parts to hear how it sounds. The 4 had me engaged in the music wanting to hear the whole song while tapping my foot and sometimes bringing a tear to my eye. So while tthe Abyss I would consider technically better, but I would rather listen to the 4. 
 
However, it felt like the 4 had an arm and a leg tied behind its back in the comparison. October 2015 RMAF, I had the same chance to hear the 4 and the Abyss back to back and felt the same in preference, but it was the holographic 3D sound stage that wowed me most with the 100 impedance version I heard. The new 200 impedance had the same improved sweat Audeze sound signature, but  is missing the holographic sound stage. Hopefully this is something that will change as it burns in, but definitely a difference between the two. Or is it my imagination being so long ago and from memory to compare. Or it could be the amp - Abyss/WA22 vs. 4/King.
 
The new 200 ohm version felt very 2d compared to the holographic 3d that I remembered with the 100ohm version. Not sure if it was narrower than the 100 ohm version, but it felt like it without the 3d perspective. They both sound great, but the 100ohm version made it feel like you would walk around inside the sound stage and look behind the band members and walk between. The 200ohm version felt the same as the 2/3/X, nice, but 2d in comparison.
 
To be clear, the 200ohm 4 sounded great and is my favorite between the Abyss/4/009/HEK/etc, but it makes me want to hear the 100ohm version again to see if it was just my imagination.

Didn't hear the 100 ohms version, but the 200 ohms version seem harder to drive. From my experience, the new version sounds "2d" when not amplified correctly. Actually, the holographic soundstage is one of the things I love so much about the LCD-4 (200 ohms).

From my experience at RMAF/Canjam, I thought the 4 version 1 was all about the holographic 3d sound stage and all else was the same in terms of the Audeze sig. However, even with the 2d soundstage, the 4 was more engaging than anything else I have ever heard and still my favorite. If it is as simple as the amping required to get it back, that would be easy and fantastic, but the WA5/ROK are no slouches, so it is not likely just the AMP power unless there is more to the pairing. The king was attached to the 4 I heard at CANJAM so maybe there was a synergy there, but Torq's 4 definitely was missing the 3d magic and I want to help him figure this out. My bigger concern is that there is an SQ inconsistency with the product as I have heard in the 2 and the 3. In this case, we may need an exchange to fix. This is more likely with a hand made product and I don't know their QA threshold before pulling a unit.
 
Regardless, the 4 is worth the work as I have never had a HP touch my soul before. It is that good, and even better with the 3D. Headfi is fun, but sometimes we forget to just listen to the music which the 4 forces me to do. Hard to qualify the extra magic as it pulls me to far into the music to care.

 

[dan.gheorghe]

   
The 200 ohm version requires about 2.3x more power than the original driver - based on the increased impedance and drop in sensitivity.
 
What constitutes "correct" amplification?
 
With the Ragnarok there's about 2.5 watts available at 200 ohms (25% more than, say, the Moon Neo 430, which comes up a lot in comments about LCD-4 and soundstage), the WA5LE I'm using has ~7 watts available for the LCD-4 on its high-power setting.
 
There's no way they're being under-powered here.
 
The source is known for it's imaging.
 
The presentation of the WA5LE is hugely holographic and has great depth when the music allows for it.
 
I don't think the lack of depth to the image in this case has anything to do with how the headphones are being fed.

 
I didn't have any information on what amps were used on the 100 and 200 ohms version, but just saying that the amp can be one of the reason for that, at least from my experience.
 
7W in how many ohms? 

Ah...the source matters very much for imaging, but so does the amp. If the source is capable of great imaging and the amp is not, well...bad luck...
 
I am not saying this is the case here, but the lack of depth can be from the amp. In this case, the problem might be somewhere else.

 

[Torq]

   
I didn't have any information on what amps were used on the 100 and 200 ohms version, but just saying that the amp can be one of the reason for that, at least from my experience.
 
7W in how many ohms? 

Ah...the source matters very much for imaging, but so does the amp. If the source is capable of great imaging and the amp is not, well...bad luck...
 
I am not saying this is the case here, but the lack of depth can be from the amp. In this case, the problem might be somewhere else.

Sure, the amp can be a cause of this - but I don't think it is in this case.
 
The source also matters, both the material and the DAC (Yggdrasil), both of which produce an incredibly vivd three dimensional sound stage with my speaker system, and a quite palpable one with either my Abyss or HD800S.  Certainly the headphones here are no in the same realm as speakers for imaging, but they're still creating an image with both depth and width.
 
Power wise, the WA5LE has about 7 watts into 200 ohms ... per the manufacturer (I'm hedging between the values for 120 ohms and 300 ohms, so it might be closer to 8 watts or it might be closer to 6).
 
But regardless of all that, I think I know what's going on now after doing a little test that occurred to me on my drive home, and was verified with a couple of simple observations I asked my girlfriend to make:  It's the angle of the drivers in relation to my ears!
 
With the HD800S the pads are firm enough that they keep the drivers angled relative to my ears which allows the pinnae to have more of their natural effect, which is important for the psychoacoustics necessary for the brain to project a three dimensional sound-field
 
With the Abyss ... my preferred positioning has them also canted forward and since I run them with a very light seal (almost no seal), the frame keeps the driver's position constant.  I know from how I wear the Abyss for different types of music that putting the drivers so they're parallel to my ears significantly reduces the soundstage.
 
With the LCD-4, and my largish head, the pads on the LCD-4 are compliant enough that the drivers wind up almost completely square-on to (parallel with) my ears.  If I manually cant them forward a bit, then the soundstage suddenly develops quite a bit more depth and the width grows as well.  It's still not as wide or deep an image as I get with the HD800S or Abyss (nor is it as wide as I recall the HE-1000 being) and it does me no real good knowing this since I can't keep the drivers in that position and actually listen to them, but it helps explain what is going on!
 
Different pads might change things ... but then they'd have other acoustic effects, so it is what it is.  It's not something I've ever considered a problem, just a difference.

 

[Drewligarchy]

does the 2016 LCD 3 also have more bass?    the FAZOR lcd 3 was castrated heavily compared to pre fazor version,I wonder if they fixed it

I never heard the pre-fazor LCD 3, so can't directly comment. That said, I never had a problem with the quantity of bass from my LCD 3 (before I heard the 4) I did have a problem with the quantity of bass from the LCD XC, and I would describe the LCD 4s bass both quanitatively and qualitatively better than the 3F.

 

[groovyd]

gotta love these headphones that create this 'the nuclear reactor on your desk doesn't have enough power for it' type arguments where no matter what you drive them with they need more power to sound good

 

[jlbrach]

they do need more power than most but there are many outstanding amps that can drive them quite positively

 

[dan.gheorghe]

 
Sure, the amp can be a cause of this - but I don't think it is in this case.
 
The source also matters, both the material and the DAC (Yggdrasil), both of which produce an incredibly vivd three dimensional sound stage with my speaker system, and a quite palpable one with either my Abyss or HD800S.  Certainly the headphones here are no in the same realm as speakers for imaging, but they're still creating an image with both depth and width.
 
Power wise, the WA5LE has about 7 watts into 200 ohms ... per the manufacturer (I'm hedging between the values for 120 ohms and 300 ohms, so it might be closer to 8 watts or it might be closer to 6).
 
But regardless of all that, I think I know what's going on now after doing a little test that occurred to me on my drive home, and was verified with a couple of simple observations I asked my girlfriend to make:  It's the angle of the drivers in relation to my ears!
 
With the HD800S the pads are firm enough that they keep the drivers angled relative to my ears which allows the pinnae to have more of their natural effect, which is important for the psychoacoustics necessary for the brain to project a three dimensional sound-field
 
With the Abyss ... my preferred positioning has them also canted forward and since I run them with a very light seal (almost no seal), the frame keeps the driver's position constant.  I know from how I wear the Abyss for different types of music that putting the drivers so they're parallel to my ears significantly reduces the soundstage.
 
With the LCD-4, and my largish head, the pads on the LCD-4 are compliant enough that the drivers wind up almost completely square-on to (parallel with) my ears.  If I manually cant them forward a bit, then the soundstage suddenly develops quite a bit more depth and the width grows as well.  It's still not as wide or deep an image as I get with the HD800S or Abyss (nor is it as wide as I recall the HE-1000 being) and it does me no real good knowing this since I can't keep the drivers in that position and actually listen to them, but it helps explain what is going on!
 
Different pads might change things ... but then they'd have other acoustic effects, so it is what it is.  It's not something I've ever considered a problem, just a difference.

 
That should be more than enough power, indeed. 
 
I played with the driver angle myself and it is very important. I can see why Abyss lets you adjust that. 

  gotta love these headphones that create this 'the nuclear reactor on your desk doesn't have enough power for it' type arguments where no matter what you drive them with they need more power to sound good

 
Well, it's like a diagram. The first thing I usually check is the amplifier used and cross it off the list depending on the situation. 

 

[ufospls2]

Hey guys I'm a bit of a potato when it comes to electricity (ok, a huge potato) so in very simple terms, which is harder to drive, the Abyss AB-1266, or the LCD-4 (200ohm version) I'd be using the LCD-4 with an Auralic Taurus and LH labs Geek Out V2 (Balanced output on both.) Earlier in the thread someone mentioned they were enjoying their Taurus with the LCD-4, so that is promising, but I was just wondering how they would do with the Geek Out V2? Obviously the Geek Out V2 isn't IDEAL, but its what I have and makes for a great tiny portable solution for travelling etc...Any thoughts? 

 

[draytonklammer]

From what I believe I have read I think that the Abyss is harder to drive.
 
1-4W for the LCD-4 and I believe 4-8 for the Abyss. (don't quote me)

 

[Xecuter]

I was testing my Abyss out of my o2 and it was actually pretty acceptable.  This whole power thing gets pretty out of hand around here.
 
Any speaker user here will admit that more power is not always better. 

 

[ufospls2]

Abyss AB-1266 
 

1. Frequency Response: 5 Hz to 28 KHz
2. Impedance: 46 ohms nominal (non-reactive)
3. Phase: Flat
4. Sensitivity: 85 dB/mW
5. Distortion: Less than 1%; Less than 0.2% through ears most sensitive range
6. Weight: 620 grams

 
LCD-4
 

Style	Open circumaural
Transducer type	Planar magnetic
Magnetic arrays	Double Fluxor magnets
Magnet type	Neodymium
Transducer size	106 mm
Maximum power handling	15W (for 200ms)
Sound pressure level	>130dB with 15W
Frequency response	5Hz – 20kHz extended out to 50kHz
Total harmonic distortion	<1% through entire frequency range
Impedance	200 ohms
Efficiency	97dB / 1mW
Optimal power requirement

 
 
So if efficiency and sensitivity are the same thing then its 85db/mw vs 97db/mw. Meaning the LCD-4 is quite a bit easier to drive. I could be wrong. 
 
The power recommendation for the Abyss is 1-4 watts at 46ohm (http://www.abyss-headphones.com/docs/abyss_page.pdf)
 

 

[draytonklammer]

As I said, don't quote me.
 
In my experience, it doesn't make that huge of a difference past a certain point.

 

[ufospls2]

  I was testing my Abyss out of my o2 and it was actually pretty acceptable.  This whole power thing gets pretty out of hand around here.
 
Any speaker user here will admit that more power is not always better. 

Agreed. I'm just wondering how the LCD-4 will fare out of a Geek Out V2.